


I'll Never Need The Lie

by Eternal Scribe (Shadowcat)



Category: Primeval
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2012-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-28 16:29:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/309800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowcat/pseuds/Eternal%20Scribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There were reasons that Taylor was so determined to follow in Professor Cutter's footsteps.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll Never Need The Lie

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the song!fic challenge at primeval_vsx on LiveJournal
> 
> Song used was [Never Is A Promise - Fiona Apple](http://youtu.be/c5XptSCCciU)
> 
> Cover created by the lovely annariel at DW

_You'll never see_  
_The courage I know_  
_Its colors' richness won't_  
_Appear within your view_  
_I'll never glow_  
_The way that you glow_  
_Your presence dominates_  
_The judgments made on you..._

 

She was thirteen when she met the two men who would save her life and alter the course of it forever.

Right from the start, she gave them a hard time, but it was only because she wasn’t about to admit how scared she honestly was. After all, she had been trapped in a never ending world of sand and death. She had listened as a group of men had been killed by whatever creatures were living beneath the sand of the desert wasteland. Her fear didn’t show outwardly, though. She had learned a long time before this never to show her fear of anything, and never to allow someone to know how she was feeling because she could be hurt by those feelings.

For some reason, though, she couldn’t remain detached from these two men who were there and determined to save her from the killers beneath the sand. They had come through that tunnel looking thing for her, and neither of them was going to allow anything to happen to her. They were going to make sure that she made it safely back home where she belonged.

She didn’t know at what point on that trip that her snarkiness turned into hero worship and a crush that would last much longer than would make sense to anyone who hadn’t met either of the two men in person. Or, maybe it _would_ make sense, but people would just think that she was very young for feeling such a way.

Years would pass before she would stop caring what people might think about her if they knew her feelings and where her intense drive had come from.

Not that she really gave a damn what other people said about her.

For the first time in her life, she had a concrete plan for her future and goals for how she wanted to accomplish it. She wasn’t about to let anyone stop her from what she wanted to do.

 

 _But as the scenery grows_  
_I see in different lights_  
_The shades and shadows_  
_Undulate in my perception_  
_My feelings swell and stretch_  
_I see from greater heights_  
_I understand what I am still_  
_Too proud to mention_  
_To you..._

 

It only took Taylor a few months after her rescue to find out what had become of Stephen Hart.

The internet was usually such a wonderful source of information, but on that day, Taylor just wanted to curse and scream at it. If her laptop wasn’t such a part of her, she might have thrown it across the room. Instead, she just stared at the picture and story on her screen.

__  
**LOCAL CONSERVATIONIST DIES IN HUNTING ACCIDENT**  


Taylor’s breath caught and there was a sudden tightness in her chest that she hadn’t felt since her mum had died. Tears filled her eyes as she ran a finger along the image on her screen – as if touching it would change the reality of what she was reading. The picture they used didn’t do him justice. It captured none of the steely determination in his eyes or how very blue they were. The picture couldn’t capture the way his voice sounded or how it felt to have his arm around her – even if she later told him that she would punch him if he ever picked her up again without her permission.

Leaving that tab open, she opened a new one and let her fingers fly across the keyboard. It only took her about an hour of seriously digging to find the information that she wanted.

Quickly writing down the directions, she closed the laptop and grabbed her coat. Leaving a note for her stepfather, she slipped the strap of her messenger bag over her head and shoulder and then headed out before she could change her mind.

 

 _You'll say you understand_  
_But you don't understand_  
_You'll say you'd never_  
_Give up seeing eye to eye_  
_But never is a promise_  
_And you can't afford to lie..._

The man standing in front of the headstone didn’t surprise her. During those few hours trapped in that world, she had been able to tell that the two men were very close friends. This had to have broken a part of him.

Walking silently on the grass, she made her way to stand next to him and look at the simple monument. After a moment, she curled her hand around his. She felt his surprise, but didn’t turn to look up at him.

“It wasn’t a hunting accident.” It wasn’t a question. She knew a little about their work and had her own experience with what could be out there.

“No, it wasn’t a hunting accident,” Cutter admitted finally as he looked down at her. “Hello, Taylor.” He didn’t seem as surprised to see her as he had been to feel her take his hand. “How did you find out?”

“The internet can be a wonderful source of information about things other than porn, Professor Cutter. I’ve been paying close attention to research and strange activities out there since I asked you for a job.” She turned her head to look up at him. “What’s the real story, Professor Cutter? How did Stephen die?”

“It’s classified,” he told her, but there was no real strength behind his words.

“Screw classified,” Taylor responded. “You guys can try that on someone who doesn’t know any better. I’ve seen what’s out there, remember Professor?”

Cutter’s lips quirked in what might have been a faint smile.

“It was a creature attack,” he finally said. “He saved my life.”

There were a lot of things that she wanted to say; a lot of things that she felt about that simple explanation. However, she could grieve in her own way later. Right now, she was focused on Cutter. In the right situation, even a thirteen year old could hide her real emotions.

“Bloody idiot,” she sighed, shaking her head. “I knew from the first moment I saw him that he was one of those hero sorts. Saving people left and right, getting himself hurt.”

Cutter couldn’t help but laugh and he had the suspicious feeling that was what she had intended to happen. “Yeah, you have to be really careful with those hero types.”

“Now you better not get it into your mind that you should start going around and playing the hero type, Professor Cutter,” Taylor said firmly with a frown. “You promised me that I could come work for you when I was finished with school.”

“I know I did,” Cutter nodded. “I plan to keep my promise and I won’t go off and play the hero before then.”

“See that you don’t.”

 

 _You'll never touch_  
These things that I hold  
The skin of my emotions  
Lies beneath my own  
You'll never feel  
The heat of this soul  
My fever burns me deeper  
Than I've ever shown  
To you...

 

When Taylor started spending a lot of her free time with Cutter, the Professor was surprised at first. However, her mind was quick and she was passionate about things that mattered to her. He found that he quite enjoyed both their debates and the fact that she was so determined to learn whatever she could from him.

“Don’t you have any friends your own age who would rather be spending your time with,” he asked her one day as he watched her taking notes from one of the books he had been referencing earlier.

“The friends my age are out shopping for make-up and taking bets on which poor guy is stuffing his trousers in the front this week,” Taylor responded without looking up from what she was writing. “Besides, having me here as an actual student type keeps you from having the time to crawl into one of those bottles on the shelf there.”

Cutter started to protest that he hadn’t been planning on any such thing and then he sighed. Since when had a teenager become his conscience – however temporary that might be?

“Your liver will thank me for it,” Taylor commented as she finally finished what she was writing and looked up at him. “Besides, drowning your grief in alcohol only makes things that much worse and it can lead to you losing track of the things that are really important in your life.” She pushed a strand of hair back into her cap. “Besides, while I didn’t know him very long, I don’t think Hart would appreciate you honoring his memory and sacrifice by giving yourself a severe case of alcohol poisoning.”

“You’re becoming a right pain in the arse, Taylor Craig.” Cutter finally said. It was far better in his mind than admitting that she was completely right about her statement.

“It’s how you know I care,” Taylor said with a cheeky grin. “Also, having me here to teach distracts you from obsessing over asking Jenny out to dinner sometime soon.”

Cutter just gaped at her for a long moment before sighing and shaking his head. “Let’s start on Chapter Nine,” he finally said.

 

 _You'll say_  
Don't fear your dreams  
It's easier than it seems  
You'll say you'd never  
Let me fall from hopes so high  
But never is a promise  
And you can't afford to lie...

 

“Why Evolutionary Biology,” she finally asked one afternoon after he had pulled several books from his shelves for her to peruse as they talked.

“I’ve always been fascinated about life and how it changes or evolves in reference to time and their surroundings,” Cutter answered immediately. “Life and how it adapts is something we just don’t have enough information about and that needs to change.”

“So that’s one of the reasons you spend so much time working at the ARC? Because it gives you a chance to see evolution in action?”

Cutter gave her a chiding look. “Lester would have apoplexy over you talking about that. It’s supposed to be a secret project as well you know.”

“Giant. Killer. Scorpions.” Taylor reminded him as she shook her head. “When you are almost eaten by creatures the size of a house who have been extinct for hundreds of millions of years, and then rescued by people after watching an entire military unit die, well, then it’s hard not to realize that there is a secret government project that knows all about it.” She raised an eyebrow. “Especially since two stubborn blokes knew exactly where to come look for me.”

Cutter laughed and shook his head. “I guess you’re right.”

“The Emperor isn’t wearing any clothes,” Taylor commented dryly. “Some things once seen can never be unseen.”

He had never heard it described quite that way, but he supposed that it made some kind of sense. Well, at least to Taylor, and really, that explained quite a lot. She was a kid and hadn’t yet had her spirit warped or her mind forced to conform and be like everyone else. He made a silent promise to himself and to her that he would fight against any of that happening to her for as long as he could.

“Please don’t talk about someone having no clothes on right after we’ve been talking about Lester,” he said out loud as he turned to another page in the book he was lecturing to her from. “It will leave scars on my brain and then all of your work to keep me from drowning my sorrows in cheap alcohol will all be wasted.”

 

 _You'll never live_  
The life that I live  
I'll never live the life  
That wakes you in the night...

 

“What makes you keep coming back here every afternoon or evening week after week?” Cutter decided to ask her at the end of the third week.

She finished writing something down in her notebook and then lifted her head. “You mean you really have no idea?”

“If I did, why would I be asking?”

Taylor gave him a smile that he just knew meant trouble.

“You promised me that I could come and work for you when I get finished with school,” she said slowly.

“Yes, I know. I remember making the promise.”

“So, if I start out as your intern or your part time student, then I get a leg up in my classes – especially when I go to University. I will already have started studying toward my major – and my minor as well. Going to University just makes all of my hard work and learning more official.”

Once more, she had managed to render Cutter temporarily speechless as he stared at her. He shook his head in an attempt to clear his thoughts. “What do you plan for your major to be?”

The look Taylor gave him made it seem like he should already have the answer to that question.

“Evolutionary Biology with a minor in Paleontology.”

Cutter pinched the bridge of his nose. “I shouldn’t be this surprised.”

“No, not really,” Taylor agreed. “You’ve pretty much been my private tutor these last few weeks. When we can’t get together for a session because you’re at work, then I study the books that you’ve lent me.”

“I’ve been being a teacher and I didn’t even realize it,” he sighed.

“I bet you’re a teacher at work and not even thinking about it there, either. It comes naturally to you and you like passing along your knowledge.” Taylor shrugged. “You have students all around you, Professor. I’m just the one that you see and get to lecture to the most.”

 

 _You'll never hear_  
The message I give  
You'll say it looks as though  
I might give up this fight...

 

“I’m not sure that I should encourage you to follow in my footsteps and go into my field of study.”

The statement was given one afternoon when they were studying at his office at the university. They were surrounded by all of his fossils and stacks of books and papers that hadn’t been organized in months, and it made him think about Stephen. More important than that, it made him remember how Stephen had died. He couldn’t bear the thought of something like that happening to Taylor.

“And why is that, Professor Cutter?”

“My specialization got Stephen killed.”

“No,” Taylor refuted that statement. “Stephen died in a creature attack because he needed to play the hero.”

“He saved my life, Taylor.”

“Because you would have done the same bloody thing if he had given you the opening.”

Cutter couldn’t argue with that statement as it had been what he was planning to do before Stephen had decided to hit him and run into that room.

“Besides,” Taylor continued. “I’m still a teenager, so I have several years before I’ll have to choose rather or not I’m going to need to play the hero.”

“That possibility in the future is one of the things that scare me.”

“Cutter … you made me a promise.”

“I know I did.”

“So, it makes more sense that I learn all of this from you and it gives me the knowledge to push back at the teachers in University when they’re stupid or they really don’t know their subject matter or course material.”

Cutter sighed, once again cursing her logic. “I just don’t want you to get hurt, Taylor.”

Taylor met his gaze steadily. “Cutter, with or without you, this is where I want my life to go. This is the path I’ve decided on. I would much rather have you teaching me and getting me prepared for the university and the job than anyone else.” She shrugged. “But if I have to go it alone, then I will.”

Cutter shook his head. He knew that he could teach Taylor better than a group of teachers pretending to be scientists that had no real grasp of the field of study that she was determined to go into. At least with him teaching her, her head wouldn’t get filled with a bunch of nonsense.

He sighed. “Fine, then once a week, it will be like you’re in a real class with me and we’ll go over what I used to teach my classes. The rest of the time, we’ll go one meeting and discussing things in the casual way that we have been doing up until this point.” He couldn’t believe what he was planning to do. “But that one day a week, I will be working your arse off just as much as I would with any of my other students in the official classes.”

“Good,” Taylor said with a crispness that told Cutter she had already expected him to come around to that decision on his own soon enough. “And now, when I leave tonight, you can phone Miss Jenny Lewis and tell her that you did in fact finally cave in to the idea of taking me on as your official student.”

 

 _But as the scenery grows_  
I see in different lights  
The shades and shadows  
Undulate in my perception  
My feelings swell and stretch  
I see from greater heights  
I realise what I am now  
Too careful to mention  
To you...

 

It was halfway through the third month of their meetings that she knew that there was something terribly wrong. She had been reading in his makeshift classroom at his flat for two hours and Cutter still hadn’t returned. She paced a bit as she read, then tried calling his mobile only to get his recorded voice mail telling her to leave a message.

She couldn’t stay here and worry herself sick trying to figure out what was going on and where he was. She put the books that they were studying – as well as a few extra books and journals that they had planned to discuss and start on lessons with next week – into her bag. She wasn’t taking any chances right now that they might get lost or disappear before they could be studied.

She had learned from the example of Stephen’s sudden death not to take anything in her life for granted.

Hopefully the Professor would call her in a few days and just tell her that it had been a creature invasion and everything would be all right. But even when she got back to her place, she still spent most of the night worrying. In the short time they had been studying together, he had never not called her when he wasn’t going to be able to meet with her.

Her stepfather, Steve, of course noticed that something was bothering her. The relationship between the two of them had gotten better in the last few months since the day he thought he’d lost her. They talked more often and he paid closer attention to what was going on with her.

“Taylor, what’s wrong?” He asked her after he watched her hang up the phone for the fifth time that night.

“It’s the Professor,” she said worriedly. “We were supposed to meet at his place today for a tutoring session, but he never showed up to start the lesson.”

Steve was thoughtful for a moment. “Didn’t you tell me before that sometimes his other job calls him away for hours at a time?”

Taylor nodded slowly, coming to sit back down on the sofa next to her stepfather. Steve wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close.

“It will be all right, kid,” he assured her as he kissed the top of her head. “You’ve said this bloke is tough and that he enjoys being your tutor. There is no way he would just disappear on you.”

Taylor wasn’t so sure about the not disappearing part. She knew how easy it could be to accidentally take a path you shouldn’t take and disappear from your own place and time.

“You’re probably right,” was all she said.

However, that didn’t stop her from checking his flat and his office at the university twice a day. Sometimes she took an extra book or journal – leaving a plastic toy scorpion in their place so he would know that she was the one who had borrowed them.

When a few days turned into two weeks and she still hadn’t heard from him, Taylor’s worry became real fear.

“Professor Cutter, where are you?”

 

 _You'll say you understand_  
You'll never understand  
I'll say I'll never wake up  
Knowing how or why  
I don't know what  
To believe in...

This time, it wasn’t by mere accident that Taylor found out the truth about what had happened to someone she knew. Her hand tightened around the telephone as she listened to Jenny Lewis explaining that there had been an explosion at the ARC facility. It had taken them so long to call her because in all of the confusion and emotional upheaval, Jenny had forgotten that Cutter had been teaching her. Jenny was sorry she had forgotten her, but she had called as soon as she found Taylor’s number. For some reason the voice seemed like it was coming from far away. She didn’t remember what she said to Jenny before she hung up the phone, but she soon went to her room and shut the door very carefully.

_Professor Cutter was dead._

The phrase wasn’t real to her yet. She didn’t know when it ever would be real.

He wasn’t supposed to die. He was supposed to stay around as she got older. He was supposed to be her friend and her mentor for a long time; a very long time.

It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair.

For the first time that she could remember since her mother had died, Taylor felt an overwhelming pain in her chest. It was the kind of pain that made it hard to draw a breath deep enough to get her balance back. She moved from her door and threw herself across her bed.

She didn’t know how long she cried for, just that it seemed that the tears had no desire to slow down or to stop. She cried until her head throat burned and her head hurt.

Sometimes it really was unfair to be a kid because there was nothing she could do to make sure that the people she lost weren’t forgotten. There was nothing she could do for them when they were already gone.

The thought had barely finished forming in her mind when her eyes landed on the books stacked on her desk.

Books she had borrowed from Cutter over the last few months that she had been meeting with him after school. Books that she had been studying and discussing with him. Books that they had been planning to use as her stepping stones to what she planned to do for the rest of her life.

She sat up slowly, holding onto her pillow while the tears continued to slide down her cheeks. There was no reason that she couldn’t keep studying like she had planned to before. Cutter was gone, but his knowledge wasn’t. She still had everything he had taught her and she had the books and journals she had borrowed from him.

 

Two days later, she was standing at his gravesite and looking very seriously at his headstone.

“I won’t let you down, Professor Cutter. I promise you that I’ll keep studying and I’ll keep doing everything that we talked about. I’ll study and get high marks and go to the University. I promise you that everything you worked for won’t be forgotten or wasted.”

She touched the top of his headstone and swallowed hard. She could do this. She could keep on studying and working and she would make sure that she would make Cutter proud of her and her accomplishments.

“I promise you.”

 

 _You won't know who I am_  
You'll say I need appeasing  
When I start to cry  
But never is a promise  
And I'll never need a lie ...


End file.
